In 2016 I made a promise to myself that I would devote as much time as possible during the balance of my working life to assisting those business owners who genuinely want to be helped, become better at what they do in the business realm.
I come from a teaching family – both my Mother and Father were high achieving teachers over their respective 40 year teaching careers in New Zealand, and I consider that growing-up in this nurturing home environment is playing a considerable part in me deciding to turn my attentions to helping business owners survive and thrive at this stage of my life.
I have over 20 years experience – working in CEO/ COO/ GM/ Business Advisor roles – guiding the development and capability improvement of many businesses across a diverse range of industries. I am well placed to assist business owners/ managers in developing their Real World commercial capability and acumen, and/ or help resolve particular commercial issues/ problems/ opportunities.
It is completely up to each business owner/ manager to determine what level and type of engagement of services they require and seek. I can help (as desired) business owners/ managers identify what type/ level of engagement they need by providing a “Gap Analysis” service, if that is something that business owners/ managers would like to have happen in the first instance. The output of this service comprises a comprehensive written Gap Analysis Report, which the business owner/ manager can use as they wish – it very much becomes their confidential intellectual property.
Because my commercial skills and experiences span a wide range of disciplines and industries, I’m very comfortable consulting across these dimensions:
- Gap Analysis
- Strategic Planning
- Business Planning
- Marketing – all channels, brand development, strategic marketing, consumer behaviour, corporate identity protocols, marketing collateral construction, etc
- Market Research and commercial validation of a new product/ service
- People Management – how to manage people effectively so as to build favourable workplace cultures
- Financial Management – marketing budgets, operating budgets, P & L, Balance Sheet
- How to scale upwards by changing your business model/ structure
- Operations Management – systems, processes, procedures
- IT – ecommerce, development and use of Business Intelligence (BI) systems, intranets
- Communications
- Leadership
- Buying a business – including financial modelling to predict likely returns and break-even points
- Selling a business – including succession planning
- Starting-up a business
- Re-structuring a business to prepare for growth
- Operating a franchise – legal agreements, management, reporting
- Opportunity rationalisation – including predictive analysis
- Problem solving – whatever the nature
- Preferred Supplier network establishment and management
- Improving Governance practices
- Merger rationalisation and facilitation
I am happy guiding either an individual or a small group of people during a guidance/ consulting session. I operate with a fee structure that ensures that my consultancy services are affordable for any scale of business – even small Sole Trader businesses. That is, I set fees based on discovering the scale (and complexity) the given client business reflects – and therefore the given business’s affordability when it comes to engaging an external consultant.
Minimum Services Fee Rate = $75.00 + GST per hour; and reflects (applies to) a business operation that is generating sales turnover/ revenue in the range $10,000 to $50,000 incl. GST per annum.
Maximum Services Fee Rate = $195.00 + GST per hour; and reflects (applies to) a business operation that is generating sales turnover/ revenue in the range $1,000,000 incl. GST or greater per annum.
Mid-Range Services Fee Rate = $135.00 + GST per hour; and reflects (applies to) a business operation that is generating sales turnover/ revenue in the range of $50,000.01 to $999,999.99 incl. GST per annum.
The above Services Fee rates apply to: face-to-face meetings with the client, preparation of written communications to the client which require longer than 10 minutes to prepare and the preparation of written documents/ reports. A Flat Travel Fee (irrespective of the scale of the given client’s business) of $35 + GST per hour is charged in relation to the time required to travel to/ from the location of the client when face-to-face meetings are confirmed.
Disbursements such as – yet not limited to – travel costs (e.g. flight tickets, taxi fares, etc), accommodation costs and the cost of meals that must necessarily be incurred in order to meet with the client face-to-face are always invoiced as disbursements at cost (i.e. no margin whatsoever added).
Detailed accurate time in attendance records are maintained, which serve as the basis for client invoicing. These are available for clients to inspect at any time. All output documentation (e.g. Gap Analysis Report, Strategic Plan, etc) relating to services provided to the client by Real World Consulting becomes the intellectual property of the client once the related invoice for services rendered/ provided is settled in full by the client.
Before I engage with a client I communicate the following two essential expectations that I have of them – and these are the same expectations that I put in front of any client who has an interest in working with me (irrespective of their scale and industry/ business category).
Firstly, before any engagement formality takes place the client must have read a good number of the Blogs that I have posted in my company website to understand what my ethos is when it comes to developing/ improving organisations; to make sure that the client’s beliefs/ thoughts around improving capability are at least somewhat aligned to my own.
Secondly, the client must genuinely want to improve their capability and/ or that of their team and/ or that of their organisation as a whole.
Clients who are comfortable with saying “yes” to both of the above expectations can look forward to a rewarding knowledge and skill-set building experience; and I look forward to imparting my knowledge/ skills to you to the best of my ability and to the fullest extent that I can.
Please use the contact form here to enquire about engaging me.